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Post by cas on Oct 6, 2018 14:37:21 GMT -5
I've never really been sure what people mean (where they mean) when talking about shoulder shots, "breaking them down" with handguns, (you know, ones firing actual pistol cartridges). I'm talking strictly broad sided here like the photo. (I like quartering shots better where you can get a little bit of everything) Are they talking about a high shoulder shot like you'd do with a rifle? Upper scapula, high lungs and possibly spine? Or are they NOT talking about true broad sides and talking about point of the shoulder, then through the lungs?
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Post by coldtriggerfinger on Oct 6, 2018 14:56:15 GMT -5
The pic doesn't really jive with ruminate anatomy from my experience. At least not with Sitka Blacktails, caribou, and moose.
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Post by bula on Oct 6, 2018 15:46:48 GMT -5
Having been a heart/lung shooter due to growing up with a bow, this thread will keep my interest. Now with a couple 480's on hand need to re-think, and learn.
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Post by cas on Oct 6, 2018 16:03:22 GMT -5
I suppose I should have said I'm referring to whitetail deer only in this case.
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Post by bigbrowndog on Oct 6, 2018 16:54:02 GMT -5
I look at the shoulder as the entire musculature not just the bones. So from the bones of the shoulder back into the red and pink area that lays rearward. If you take the scapula and the humerus and move to the rear 6”-8” that would be the deers shoulder, or shoulder musculature. Trapr
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Post by cas on Oct 6, 2018 17:29:04 GMT -5
But you're still (theoretically) only hitting muscle and ribs there. How is that any different than a heart/lung shot?
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Post by coldtriggerfinger on Oct 6, 2018 21:21:03 GMT -5
I see your point Cas. Tho it's kinda hard on the meat. I like a shot that cuts the arteries off the top of the heart, breaks the leg bone at the ball joint and messes up the lungs all at the same time. As far as an , do everything possible to put meat on the ground. Generally I try for the off side shoulder/leg bone and the shot wrecks the boiler room in the process. But then VERY seldom am I presented with a true 90° broadside shot on the same level I'm on.
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Post by bigbrowndog on Oct 6, 2018 21:44:15 GMT -5
Gotta agree with CTF, I don’t think I’ve ever taken a true broadside shot. With cast I try and break bog bones and hit vital organs, with jacketed I try to avoid bog bones and hit vitals.
Trapr
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Post by jfs on Oct 6, 2018 22:04:01 GMT -5
I`ve always tried to aim for the lungs as its the biggest target for my lousey handgun shooting.... and it always worked......
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Post by cas on Oct 6, 2018 22:50:31 GMT -5
So you see my confusion. Always reading about using hard cast and breaking them down.... but I don't see any difference than anything else I've ever done with everything else. Unless they were intentionally avoiding hitting big bones when they were shooting JHP?? I assumed I must be missing something, but apparently I'm not. I always wondered.... "they can;t really be shooting them up front in the brisket, they must be taking high shoulder shots?" (which I've only seen once with a handgun.... the deer dropped on the spot. Then got up and ran, never to be seen again. But to be fair, it was a JSP.)
Even the old adage of aiming for the off side shoulder, they have to be turned pretty good for that to work.
I'd say 50% of the deer I've shot (or shot at lol) have been almost perfect broadside. All but one at the same level / elevation as me.
The other half have been quartering on. Never shot at anything quartering away.... other than running coyotes.
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Post by sixshot on Oct 7, 2018 2:00:55 GMT -5
I'm almost 100% a cast bullet shooter for the last 50 years & what I do is take the best shot they give me. Normally that's a lung shot but I've taken many with a high shoulder shot that always drops them right in their tracks. You usually need a finishing shot because that shot doesn't always instantly kill them but it does anchor them. When I do take lung shots they aren't actually a true broadside shot because of the angle, I'm hunting in the mountains so we're seldom on the same level, either higher or lower even if it's a broadside shot. But to be perfectly clear I don't pass up any good shot & I don't worry about angles, I'll take any angle them give me as long as the vitals are somewhere on the finishing end of the shot. I couldn't do that with most jacketed bullets.
Dick
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Post by bradshaw on Oct 7, 2018 6:42:50 GMT -5
Shoulder Shot I think the schematic of deer anatomy does place the should a bit forward of reality. Also, there cis fore & aft shifting of shoulder blade and leg as animal walks or gallops. The shoulder comes into focus when the deer must be dropped, for instance where you don’t want it to fall into a river a or plunge into kudzu jungle, especially when environ and weather are ripe with pit vipers. A s suggested high shoulder shot which misses the spine may equal a lost deer.
Forward motion is a time to aim at a baseball-spot on the shoulder if the deer is walking----slowly. Properly squeezed, this prevents a gut shot. When a standing deer elects to step, just as you consecrate the trigger, a shoulder shot becomes a lung shot. A galloping deer makes real LEADE imperative. One doesn’t arrive at this marksmanship lightly.
Lung Shot The lungshot----a zone within the forward third of torso (the middle of the deer is too far back)----causes the heart to pump returning blood into the lungs, now ventilated, which starves the brain of oxygen and the deer expires. Thus, the meat of a lungshot deer is drained and does not continue to bleed forever as you serve it. It also stores the longest of any red meat in the freezer. If the heart and lungs are shot, the deer of course dies, but not necessarily in the predictable Hollywood fashion. The critter may leap, it may mule-kick, it may run for the Almighty not knowing its dead, or, it may keel over.
Tracking may be the purest form of deer hunting, but it is the most limited. The land must support this nomadic performance: conditions must allow for tracking and permit reasonable approach. It is big on exertion and costly in calories, yet no ambush achieves its honesty of satisfaction. David Bradshaw
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Post by bula on Oct 7, 2018 8:07:27 GMT -5
Bradshaw, love that last bit. Tracking is a fading art. Of the deer I've dropped, about a dozen were taken with a M37 12ga Deerslayer using Brenneke slugs. No slug ever recovered and always amazed at the 100yd dash even though hearts often found with a thumb sized hole thru. With the M37 and now the 480's I do need to remember I'm not bowhunting ! I did get a nice medium sized 6pt buck using the SBH and Federal CastCore 300gr WFN's. The shot was different for me, nearly head on. Bullet went in just right of center and crossed over the top of the heart and thru right lung and sheared last 2 ribs on exit. This did prove to me that if enough penetration is gonna happen you just have to visualize things on thru the critter and hit them to git them.
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Post by magnumwheelman on Oct 8, 2018 15:19:15 GMT -5
I personally look for a shot that will... 1st drop the deer as quickly as possible, & 2nd do the least damage to the meat...
I don't normally think of a shoulder shot in deer hunting... more so for dangerous game, in which, said dangerous animal could continue on it's path towards the shooter, in an angry mood...
less useable meat in the ribs... on a full on side shot, the heart / lung would be my 1st target
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Post by seak89 on Oct 9, 2018 13:25:48 GMT -5
Living in bear country I always think high shoulder spine shot with cast bullets. That carries over to everything I shoot.
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